My papyrus adventures

As many of you probably know (refer to my previous postings on the
subject), I have begun a mission to get a good palladium print on papyrus.
 This post is an account of my experiences thus far as well as my initial
impressions of the material for printing.

The paper itself. I purchased my papyrus paper from
http://www.dickblick.com/zz112/39/. I was given a choice of "light" or
"dark" color, at which point I went for "light". The paper is gorgeous
(refer to the website for a picture). As far as wet-strength goes, it's
one of the strongest materials I've ever worked with. Once wet, it's
incredibly difficult to tear.

Coating. Coating was quite a bit easier than I expected it to be. The
drop count for papyrus worked out to be about 1 drop/2 sq. in...roughly
the same as Arches Platine. I used a magic brush to spread the
sensitizer. The papyrus didn't absorb the chemistry to fast or too slow,
which made it a very pleasant experience.

Development. I used a 3% potassium oxalate solution at room temperature
for 3 minutes. The color of the papyrus combined with the warm tones of
pot ox development is stunning (sorry, I haven't had a chance to scan
anything yet...once I get a good print I'll post a link).

Issues to overcome. There were some issues that became apparent as I was
working through this. The first one happened between the coating and
exposure. Moisture makes that papyrus curl/wrinkle like there's no
tomorrow. As a result, when put in the contact printing frame (quite
tightly, I might add), there were several spots that were not in direct
contact with the negative, resulting in blurry splotches. I'm thinking I
will hot press the papyrus after coating next time to solve this; can
anyone see a reason not to do this?

The next problem (not so much a problem) is with drying. I finished my
first print late Friday afternoon, and left it to hang dry over the
weekend. Big mistake. It wrinkled so much when it dried no amount of hot
pressing could flatten it. For one of my test strip prints earlier that
day, I only let it hang dry for about an hour, then hot-pressed it. That
worked out really well. So my advice to anyone wanting to try this is
don't leave it too long to dry.

That's all for now. Friday's work was simply to answer the question "can
it be done". Now that I've got some experience, I'm going make a second
attempt sometime this week and hopefully I'll have a print to show off to
everyone. I'll keep you all updated.

If anyone has had experience printing on papyrus, I would love to hear
about it. Based on my previous thread about this, it doesn't sound like
anyone has, but I'm throwing this out there just in case.

Camden Hardy

camden@hardyphotography.net
http://www.hardyphotography.net
Received on 07/25/06-10:31:53 AM Z